New member --- I am in the process of setting up a 20 gallon long tank for raising some juvenile zebras, that I aim to get shortly. It will have an Eheim 2213 canister filter and an Aquaball 1212 for oxygenation.

I've been doing a lot of research and looking at a lot of pictures of all of your very artistic tanks. I have a couple nice pieces of driftwood and CaribSea Torpedo Beach Sand, but no rocks.

I was wondering -- where are you all getting the rockwork for these tanks? Is there a store or website you are buying from? Are you going into the woods or into a stream and finding these?

Wal-mart......in the crafts/home decorating section and find the "Akasha" decorative stones. They make stones in the aquaruim section that are labeled for aquarium use, but they're usually small and only one color. I've used their large and extra large stones in my tank and haven't had any problems. They are smooth and clean. I don't boil them, but just rinse with hot water. I think they look great with pieces of slate scattered around and my fish love it. I'll post some pics in a few.

I use two types of "rocks" in my breeding tank. One are flat pieces of rock I buy from a place that sells landscape rock, compost and retaining wall blocks. Most cities will have places like this around. Purchasing them at such a place give you a lot of choice in variety, color and size. And they are very inexpensive. The other type are custom made kiln fired clay "rocks" containing pleco caves (3 caves in each rock, caves that are 1" high, 1.5" wide and 6" deep depressions in the rock) that were made by Brantley Berry at www.plecocaves.com. Brantley has a picture of one of the caves he made for me on his website. Other pictures of these custom made caves with zebra plecos using them (and examples of the flat rock) can be seen at www.buyzebrapleco.com on the first page and the "Pictures" page. He can make them in other colors as well. In addition, he has many types of smaller individual custom caves.

Look online (internet search or yellow pages for your city) using the terms landscape materials, landscape supplies, masonry supplies or decorative rock and the name of your city and state is one way. That seems to pull up the ones in my area, so that should work. Good luck.

That looks really cool, Vaney. What sort of lighting do you have there? I love the lighting. Also how many liters is the tank?

Two Tank Admin -- I found a stone place about 40 min from me.. I will prob take a trip out there... what sort of washing / heating / cleaning do you recommend for the stones prior to placement in the tank?

I am still a couple weeks away from actually getting some zebras so I'm glad I have the time to plan this out.

The one thing I worry about when shopping in stone and gravel yards is petroleum related pollution. The stone and gravel are delivered in big trucks, often the stuff is moved around the yard with a bucket loader. All this equipment has the potential for leaking oil, diesel hydraulic fluid etc. So I try to make sure what I select isn't contaminated to the extent that I can.

My normal practice is to rinse stuff under hot water while using a brush to scrub it. If I have any doubts, it goes into a pot on the stove to boil a while. I find that putting rocks into a bucket of very warm water or boiling in a pot often shows what may be on rocks. Oily stuff tends to come off and float on top of the water. Its like what you often see in a marina with lots of motor boats- there is an oil/fuel slick on the water. I should note that for the most part over the years this has not been a huge issue. I have rejected some "wild caught" drift wood I could not make stop leaching an oil slick when soaked. Pretty much I have never refused to put a rock in my tank because I feared it wasn't safe. However, I would rather be overly paranoid, especially when it comes to zebras.

One of the things I like about the river rounds is hey come in colors which can help to make a tank look more interesting to some folks.